Crusty old woman

So what have I been doing lately? Mostly baking! Oh, and work, and stuff, but in the free bits, there's been quite a bit of baking. It's all Shirley O Corriher's fault. We bought a book one day, when we were browsing in a bookshop on Scout night (the one night when all the kids are busy for a little while, and Jeff and I get to sneak out). This book, Bakewise, jumped out at us, and as we read a few paragraphs in the shop, we realised it would answer a lot of our geeky baking questions, and set us off baking even more good stuff.

I made the Tunnel of Fudge Cake (which I showed off at Stamp club, and on the stamp club blog). Then there was the delicious biscuits (that's American style biscuits - warm scones with a bowl of soup for us) and they were awesome.

Then I had a birthday, and scored another great book - it's this one - which encourages you to make slow rising, crusty, fab bread. It's really easy too! Let's just enhance that photo shall we?

It's crusty, chewy, and very hard not to say yes to that last slice.

I've been walking around the block a little extra lately too.

And this morning I've made this for stamp club - Cranberry and White Chocolate Scones (really that same biscuit recipe, full of buttermilk and cream). Oh wow.